A/N: Well despite this being an older story, this is actually my most popular fic so far!

I admit that the statue "test" Holmes plans in this chapter is a bit juvenile – he would probably already know the outcome due to his extensive studies – but since I wrote this to be in the earlier days of his practice we can just assume that up to this point he was busy with other more pressing matters than the effects of various hammers.

Part 3

Mrs. Hudson had already set out our dinner by the time we got home, but as I was too shaken to eat, and Holmes was so focused on the matter at hand he brought the box of ruins to table, the beef and potatoes soon grew cold, and our housekeeper sullenly put them away, and we headed upstairs.

I was rather bitter upon first entering. It had been such a long time since I had actually been in the room, I had a hard time finding my chair. It was buried under papers and Holmes' old dinner jacket. (When he was working, my friend was not the tidiest person in London.) He selected several large books from the shelf, cleared a two-year-old paper from the settee, and we sat down to compare our notes.

"I suggest you go on to bed, Watson," Holmes advised me after we spent an hour or so discussing theories. "I have reached a point where nothing can be done until I test a few ideas, and those tests cannot proceed until the shops open in the morning. Be dressed and ready early, dear man." This was a bit of a joke, as I was always ready before Holmes was just rolling out of bed. I sat up, alert to whatever my duty was to be.

"What? Do you have some business for me to do?"

"Oh, certainly Watson. You don't think I could progress without you?"

"Yes, you know it as well as I."

"Well, I probably could," he admitted, "but then the whole business would be rather too business-like, wouldn't it?" He snuffed out his candle. "Good night, Watson!"

By the time I finished my breakfast in the morning, Holmes was beginning to get dressed. I wandered into the room just as he was buttoning up his waistcoat. "Now then, Watson, you will have to make another call on Miss Burgess."

"Why is that?"

"Well, in all the excitement no one, including myself, asked who she sold her bust to. I did remember, of course," he added critically, "but I didn't want to upset her. I hope she fared well through the night," he concluded, with a frown of concern.

"Oh, ladies faint all the time," I said practically. Holmes gave me a curious look at my hasty generalization.

"At any rate, you be sure to get a good description of the buyer. He must have been an art dealer, or at least posing as one, because I don't think Miss Burgess would have sold the piece otherwise."

"What if the man who bought the piece was not the one who actually destroyed it?" I asked.

"An excellent thought, but in this case we shall just have to take that chance. Perhaps we will strike luck and he will lead us to the criminal." Holmes looked into the glass, twitched his tie into place, then tromped downstairs with a professional air.

Winchester Park was bustling with early morning activity by the time I arrived, and I noticed several young people coming out of Miss Burgess' apartment building, most likely heading to whatever their daily work might be. I was rather afraid Miss Burgess herself would be out, but fortunately I caught her just as she was locking her door.

"Dr. Watson," she exclaimed, surprised and a bit confused. "Why, whatever are you doing here?"

"Holmes sent me to ask a few questions," I said, offering my arm as we walked downstairs. "In all the excitement – "

"Yes, well what did you need to know?" I wondered why Miss Burgess still seemed so embarrassed about her fainting spell, but she appeared eager to answer my questions.

"The man you sold your sculpture to – what did he look like?"

"Hmm." Miss Burgess thought a moment. "He was especially tall and thin. He was not ugly, but neither was he handsome," she said in a critically feminine manner. "His hair was auburn – dark red, you know – and his face was long and lean. He was rather young, not much older than you yourself." She looked over my shoulder at the notes I was taking.

"This is all rather crucial," I explained, rubbing out a misspelling. "What was his behaviour like?"

"He seemed kind enough, but rather bland. I think he is Irish. We talked about paintings for a while, which of course he would know all about, being an art dealer."

"So he was an art dealer," I said, more to myself than her.

"That is why I sold my bust," she said, regretfully. "Whoever he sold it to must have been very bad to have broken it. And send it back to me," she added with a little choke.

"Miss Burgess," I said, shocked at her naiveté, "the man saying he was an art dealer was most likely not an art dealer. He was probably a fraud. And he is probably the man who broke your sculpture as well; he might have even been an accomplice to another criminal. My companion will naturally discern all this."

"You are both so clever. I suppose you think I am terribly foolish."

"No. Criminals can be quite confusing, even after working in the business as long as I have. But you must keep facts straight."

Miss Burgess nodded. "Is that all you wanted to ask me?"

"Yes, you were indeed helpful," I told her cordially. "Where are you going today? Do you feel well enough?"

"Oh, very much. I am taking the doll's heads I have sculpted to the doll maker's. The income is quite a tidy sum, really. And that's helpful right now, what with hospital bills and my allowance coming late. Then I am going to stay with Margaret for most of the day, I know she is so lonely and – oh!" Miss Burgess lit up and began rooting around in her reticule. "He, that bad art dealer, left me one of these, and with all the deception and whatnot I'm sure it's a fake, to throw us off his trail. But perhaps it can be of some kind of help." She pulled a business card from her bag and handed it to me. "William Beresford, he called himself."

"This is a magnificent piece," I cried.

"Well at least I don't look so inexperienced, now. Have a good afternoon, Dr. Watson."

I returned the greeting, then took a good look at my notes as I waited for the cab. Holmes would be impressed by such a thorough description. In all fairness I could probably learn a thing or two from Miss Burgess.

I arrived home before my friend did, and it seemed a long time to wait before he came struggling through the door, three large bundles in his arm and a bag in his hand. I ran to help him with the bundles.

"See Watson, I told you I needed you. I would certainly smash the testing materials and then where would I be? Several pounds poorer, to be exact."

"What is all this?" I asked in wonderment, as Holmes began stripping the paper from one of the heavy bundles.

"This," he said, "is a sculpture. A bust, actually. Of Socrates." He stood back, admiring it.

"It looks very like him," I observed as Holmes threw off his jacket and began pulling things out of his bag.

"The wicked salesman tried to pass it off as a one-of-a-kind, but I quickly called him on it," he said humorously, rolling up his sleeves. "Anyone, not just myself, can see the lines where it was cast. But it is handsome, to be sure. Yes, it is a true shame; it would look nicely on the mantelpiece or the bookcase. Take another good look at it, Watson, for I am going to smash it." I turned and looked at him sharply. It was a large, heavy hammer he had pulled from the sack, and swinging it with great force, he precipitately brought it down on the Socratic sculpture. A loud crash, followed by a sound like breaking china, shook the room. Shards of clay scattered across the table, and what was left was little more than a fine dust. Holmes sifted the pieces through his thin hands and looked at them closely. "Oh my, not the right hammer."

"What is going on in here, Mr. Holmes!" Mrs. Hudson looked positively distressed, throwing the door open and shoving her head in. "It sounds like the world is coming to an end!"

"I suggest you step back, Mrs. Hudson, these pieces have a tendency to fly across the room, and we would hate for an injury to occur merely for the sake of testing a theory," Holmes advised smoothly. Another bundle was unwrapped and set upon the table with greatest care, and with another golf-like swing of a hammer, a smaller tool managed to smash Socrates' head into small pieces. Mrs. Hudson flung up her arms and fled the room.

"Dash it all, this is not right either." Holmes was carefully studying and comparing the wreckage between the two sculptures with his convex lens, apparently disgusted with the results of both. I have my own suspicions, however. I believe Holmes just liked to bring the hammer down and disturb the neighbours. This time he pulled out a small mallet, like the kind used for hanging pictures.

"Let us pray this is right, Watson, because this is both my last hammer and my last sculpture." With the same power he crashed the hammer into the crown of the head, but rather than causing the pieces to soar across the room, it only sent a crack running through to Socrates' nose.

"Very interesting," Holmes remarked. He hit the same spot again, and the bust broke into several fairly large pieces, one of which Holmes took up and examined. "Now we are getting somewhere, Watson. Take a look at this." He cleared away the dust and chips of clay and set the box containing Miss Burgess' shattered sculpture upon the desk. He pulled out one rather large piece, and compared it to the pieces from the three trials.

"Now, observe. When our philosopher was smashed with the large, heavy hammer, the clay near the point of impact was ground into a rather dusty material, and the pieces that broke were somewhat small. When using a smaller hammer, the dust was eliminated, but the pieces were still small because the hammer was still heavy. When using this mite, however," he picked up the smallest mallet, "the pieces were large, because the hammer was rather light. Now compare this wreckage to that of Miss Burgess' sculpture." The two pieces I examined were very similar.

"You think someone used a small hammer, then?" I asked.

"Yes, but not just any small hammer, one for hanging pictures," Holmes said, throwing himself into his favourite corner of the sofa exultantly. "The friend we seek has been around art, and could easily fool the unfortunate Miss Burgess."

"But Holmes, these pieces are quite small," I said, picking up a tiny shard from the box.

"Smashed a second time, after the statue was already broken. It makes the whole thing look worse, you see? Now we have only to connect the damage done to the two works of art, and we shall have our criminal, clear as day. Oh," he said, suddenly remembering, "your notes. Where are they?"

"Right here. Miss Burgess did think he was an art dealer. You are completely correct."

"Ha." Holmes skimmed my description "Red hair, long and lean."

"And an Irishman."

"Who deals in art, most likely in hanging pictures. He probably works at a framing gallery."

"And that is why he knew enough about art to convince Miss Burgess he was a dealer," I said, realising. "Holmes, you are a genius!"

"But not without these notes," he said vaguely, studying the little book. I couldn't help feeling a high satisfaction at this simple praise. "These are most important. In fact, I think you and I have an errand to run."

"An errand?"

"Yes," Holmes said, grabbing his hat off the peg. "To the framing shop."

All of a sudden, I remembered the little card Miss Burgess had handed me. I presented it to Holmes.

"Amazing! A most singular young lady, with great presence of mind," he pronounced. He held the card up to the light. "This paper is rather…cheap. Printing is as well, look how the letters have blurred around the edges from an inexperienced printer. No! I am mistaken – these have been printed using a typewriter, like the fakes I carry." He touched the card to his nose and drew back, repulsed. "Ugh. I must say, our friend wears the cheapest possible cologne in England. It must be 90% alcohol. He was keeping this card in his waistcoat pocket," he explained as I sniffed the little paper. "And I bet all the perfumes were to cover up tobacco smoke."

"I smell no smoke."

"I'm sure you do not, but take a look here." I discerned a small, yellow smudge at the corner of the card.

"Tobacco!"

"As I was telling you, Watson. Our gentleman rolls his own cigarettes. There will be a twin mark on his forefinger. Let me see…"

One of Holmes' prides was his top-notch microscope. He now slid the card underneath the lens, adjusted all manner of gears and screws, and peered into the eyepiece.

"Ah," he said, changing the light. "Watson, what do you see here?"

I looked in to the piece. "I see…a black powder. Soot!"

"Yes, soot. Our man, who wears cheap cologne and was not willing to spend much money on his business cards, has been carrying this card in a place where soot hangs in the air…"

"Closer to the industrial area," I finished.

"And that, old fellow, is precisely where I believe this framing shop to be. If we start out now, we should be back in time to eat our supper…and to keep Mrs. Hudson happy. What do you say, Watson? Is it an adventure?"

"Oh, yes!"